


The time before the end

by Sexycanofsoup



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Mobuhan, hanji/moblit
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 15:33:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1715699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sexycanofsoup/pseuds/Sexycanofsoup
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Erwin is sentenced to death by the military court where he is to be hanged at dawn the next day, and Levi thinks Erwin's delusional if he thinks Levi is going to let that happen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The time before the end

**Author's Note:**

> Warning: there is death in this fic. Death and Angst. You should probably turn away.  
> this is for Stereobone who brings such beautiful writing into the world

The time before the end

 

Erwin’s head twisted to the side the moment he heard the door slam open, but by the time his eyes came around, Levi was already on him. Erwin didn’t even have time to bring his arm up before Levi crashed into him, knocking them both to the ground with a loud thud.

“Levi, I—“

“Fuck you!” Levi snapped hoarsely, “Fuck you, you stupid asshole bastard.”

Erwin was surprised that they’d let him in. After the sentencing they’d put him back into his quarters and installed a padlock on the door that would have kept a Titan back. Not to mention the numerous guards they had stationed outside. However, Erwin also knew that Levi could be rather…persuasive at times. He just wondered how badly Levi had threatened the guards to be allowed in here.

“Levi, I’m sorry—“

That’s when Levi’s fist met Erwin’s face.

The punch snapped his neck back, but the sting wasn’t nearly as strong as he’d been expecting. Levi had barely hit him with half his strength. And that scared Erwin more than anything, because Levi never held back. Not if he could help it.

Erwin quickly shot his eyes back up to take in Levi’s face, and when he did, he felt his chest tighten immeasurably.

“Levi…” he whispered, taking in Levi’s staccato, juddering breaths, and the desperate hunted look in his eyes. Erwin really was sorry—sorrier than he’d ever been. Because when he’d heard the pronouncement all he’d been able to see was this exact image of the man coming true.

He reached up a hand, but before it could touch Levi’s face, the other man seized tight hold of his wrist and slammed it down to the floor on the space over his head.

“No! You don’t get to say anything, fuckwit! Not ever again! You ruined everything!”

“I was trying to do what was right—“

“Fuck that! You knew they weren’t going to listen. You knew they were out for blood—so why the _fuck_ did you give them yours?”

Erwin could feel his heart bleeding out while he looked at the sharp cracks of pain on Levi’s face. He remembered how it had felt to lose his arm, how his whole body had felt heavy even though the blood leaking out of him should have left him lighter. He remembered how his heart had struggled to beat—struggled to keep him alive—and knowing that feeling, he could decisively state that now it felt distinctly worse.

“Who would you have had me sacrifice in my place?” he asked, already regretting the question because he knew what the man would answer.

“Me!” Levi shouted, lifting Erwin’s shoulders and then slamming them back into the floor. “Me, you contemptible sack of shit! ME, because it’s _my_ fault. It’s my fault those soldiers are dead. It’s my fault they broke away and defied orders. It’s my doing that they—“

“How is it your fault? They acted on their own, without direction.”

“Don’t give me that shit! What the fuck good is the title “humanity’s strongest” if I can’t handle a few crap kids? Your job has always been to plan, to lead, while I took care of the mundane gritty work. That’s _always_ how it’s been. It’s always—“

“But you never agreed to that,” Erwin said, feeling a pang of remorse shoot through his stomach as he struggled to a sitting position beneath Levi’s weight. “You never wanted this, any of this.”

“The fuck are you bringing that old shit up for?” Levi hissed, shoving at Erwin’s shoulder before standing up with one fluid motion and turning his back on Erwin with seeming disgust.

Erwin chuckled. “I suppose I’m just feeling all the old regrets washing over me. All the things I should have done differently. The choices I should have made. And one of them is the fact that I never should have forced you to join the—“

Levi’s arm whipped toward him so fast that Erwin barely saw it coming despite intense years of training and experience. Levi had always been so much faster than anyone else.

The dark haired captain’s hand snagged in Erwin’s shirt and yanked him forward, bending Erwin down, and shrinking the foot of space that separated them height wise. “No one forced me to do anything,” he spat, “And no one ever will. Get that through your head commander dumbass, before I’m forced to put it in there for you.”

Levi was breathing heavily, but it couldn’t be from exertion. Erwin had seen the man take down three titans at once and then land, continuing the sentence he’d been interrupted from speaking, not ruffled in the slightest.

No, if Erwin had to guess, he’d place money on the fact that it was due to Levi experiencing some intense emotions—anger seeming to be the dominating one.

Despite Levi’s words, Erwin’s regret only increased in volume. He remembered the first time he’d seen Levi, swinging through the air on stolen gear. He’d looked so free—his body and life his own. And Erwin had interrupted that. He’d seen Levi’s potential, he’d seen the man and the weapon he could become. And so he’d taken away that freedom, and strapped him down with this life and its rules, clipping the man’s wings and replacing them with the blood drenched ones on their corps’ flag.

“I’m sorry, Levi,” he murmured, looking into the man’s grey eyes and hoping his own would say more than his words did. But whatever Levi found in Erwin’s face, it wasn’t positive, because then the captain’s face twisted in such astounding rage that Erwin nearly missed the sharp crease of pain that tore into the man’s skin.

This time when Levi shoved Erwin it was done with all the man’s strength. Erwin felt himself fly back and collide with his desk, the sharp corner biting deeply into his thigh. He winced and let out a hiss of pain, but Levi’s roar was louder. “Sorry my tiny fucking ass, Erwin! I don’t give a shit about your damn apologies. What good are they going to do me when you’re fucking dead, _Commander_? What. Fucking. Good?”

The last word sounded strangled, as if it had been stomped on several times and then shoved into a miniscule space. As soon as it passed his lips, Levi clapped a hand over his own face, allowing his nails to dig into the skin there, slicing deep enough to open multiple small wounds.

Erwin wanted to storm over to Levi and rip the hand away from the man’s face—to prevent him from hurting himself. But he knew that Levi would never let him approach him right now. So he would have to stay here, and give him more useless words that wouldn’t go far enough or explain deeply enough.

He exhaled, the sound harsh to his own ears, and felt a deep ache of tiredness. He’d been tired for a while now. He’d felt it first open up when he’d watched his first soldier get swallowed alive, and it had only grown stronger with every one that followed.

“Please, Levi,” he murmured, raking a hand through his hair, “I don’t want to spend my last night fighting with you.”

“Well too fucking bad!” Levi snarled, wrenching his hand away from his face so violently that he tore several strands of hairs from his roots with the motion. “It’s your own stupid fault that this is your last night. It’s your fault for confessing to a crime that isn’t your own. It’s your fault for going quietly like a fucking sheep, and it’s your fault that all of us just have to sit here with our thumbs up our asses because you won’t fucking let us do _anything_.”

“There’s nothing to do Levi. The court has made their decision.”

“Fucking liar! You know I could get you out of here in the span of maybe three minutes—tops. I could get you somewhere safe. Somewhere you’d never be found. There’s no reason other than sheer stupidity to let them put that noose around your neck at dawn tomorrow.”

“Levi—“

“Don’t fucking bother, Erwin. It’s crap and you know it!”

“Levi—“

“No! Not a word. Not a fucking word. I won’t believe you. I’ll never believe you again. You fucking liar. I can’t fucking stand men like you. What’s your damn pride going to do for you once you’re dead, huh? Not a damn fucking thing. You’ll be swinging up there, and I’ll shout I told you. I’ll shout it really fucking loudly. And you know what? You won’t hear it. Because you’ll be FUCKING DEAD!”

“Levi!”

This time Erwin didn’t allow himself to be shut up by the captain’s shouts. He pushed himself forward and grabbed Levi’s face, right over his mouth and squeezed tightly.

“It’s not pride,” he said, his teeth clenched tightly as he pressed his body into Levi’s space. “Men like me don’t have pride. Men like me are ruthless. We do everything we can for what we want. There are no methods we won’t stoop to, no matter how distasteful, in order to achieve our ultimate goal. And you know that. You’ve always known that, so stop acting so fucking surprised.”

With Erwin’s hand atop his mouth, Levi couldn’t speak, but Erwin could see the way the man’s eyes widened, and the way his pupils blew out. But they didn’t stay that way for long. Levi reached up and wrenched Erwin’s only hand aside.

“What are you saying?” he demanded, eyes flashing, “That you _want_ to die?”

Erwin met his gaze straight on. “Yes,” he answered truthfully, “If it means fulfilling my ultimate goal.”

Erwin could still see the surprise in Levi’s face even though he was trying to hide it as he asked, “Which is what, exactly?”

Erwin decided to answer truthfully. He was going to die after all. It was okay if he knew.

“Protecting you,” he said simply, the words feeling clean and perfect on his tongue.

Whatever Levi had been expecting, it wasn’t that. He stared at Erwin, looking completely baffled for the first time Erwin had ever seen.

“Protecting…me?”

He stared at Erwin, uncomprehending, and Erwin stared back, refusing to be abashed. Not when he had less than twelve hours left to live. He’d be a grown up and accept whatever reaction this brought.

As Erwin looked at him, Levi’s face slowly morphed from surprise to anger, until fury was all that was left.

“Protect _me_?” he demanded, his tone clearly one that questioned Erwin’s sanity. “You thought that I needed _protection_?”

Erwin winced. Okay, he realized Humanity’s strongest was clearly not the vulnerable sort, and yes, normally, it could be argued that Levi was the last person on the planet that needed protection, but still, the idea wasn’t a _completely_ ridiculous one.

“Erwin motherfucking smith,” Levi growled, each word leaving his throat with a sharp snap, “If you dare tell me that you put yourself in this position for _my_ sake then I’m not going to wait for the court to do it—I’m going to murder you in cold blood right where you stand.”

Erwin felt his face twitch with guilt, but he forced himself to continue looking at Levi’s face as he said, “Fine. I won’t tell you then.”

He refused to feel bad about it. He refused. Ensuring Levi’s safety was the one thing in this world he could do with absolutely no regrets. He had been completely sure of the course of action, and wouldn’t let anyone, even Levi himself persuade him that the idea had been a bad one.

But then Levi looked at him, and every cell in his body screamed then because Levi’s eyes had exploded with unmuted pain.

“No,” Levi breathed, looking like he’d just had a blade thrust and twisted into his abdomen, “No. You don’t get to do this to me. You don’t. I refuse.”

“Levi, it’s okay. I was happy to—“

“NO!” Levi roared, leaping forward and smashing into Erwin’s chest again, forcing him to collide once more with the desk. The piece of furniture was the only thing that had prevented them both from crashing to the floor. “No!” Levi’s voice was raw anger and betrayal. “You don’t just get to go off and die. Not without me. And _especially_ not in exchange with this sort of guilt. I won’t be responsible for your death you fucking son of bitch. No way. You don’t get to do that to me Erwin. _You don’t!”_

Levi’s fury was so powerful and absolute that Erwin expected it to go on forever, outlasting everything—the walls, the titans, and all of humanity. But it didn’t, because the next moment Levi’s head collapsed onto Erwin’s chest, his body utterly spent.

Erwin felt equal parts of panic and pain shoot through him in response to both the man’s words, as well as the utter vulnerability the figure in his arms presented to him now. Right now the person he was holding wasn’t a fierce Titan killing weapon—it was the body of a broken man. A man defeated by someone he had counted on as a friend. Erwin had done this to him even though all he’d wanted was to spare him from the fate currently hanging over his own head.

His arms came up to wrap around the man instinctively, wanting to hold Levi up, to take away the burden of guilt and fear, to wipe it all away and replace it with warmth, but the second his hands touched the man’s back, Levi gripped the front of Erwin’s shirt tightly, buried his face in the man’s chest, and let out a resounding scream that was clearly reminiscent of the cry of a hunted animal’s dying breath.

The sound ripped right through Erwin, tearing into his heart and wrenching it into pulsing bloody chunks. He knew this was what must have happened because the pain inside his chest was so intense it couldn’t have been the result of anything else.

“I hate you!” Levi hissed, his voice shredded and hoarse from the scream as well as his emotions, “I hate you more than I’ve ever hated anyone else. You vicious monster. You cruel insufferable bastard! I wish I’d never met you! I wish I’d stayed home the day you caught me in the underground. I wish I’d been born in a different time—any other time so long as it didn’t have you in it! I despise you with every ounce of my being. I loathe you more than I do the Titans. I—“

Erwin wrenched Levi’s chin up sharply, with desperate panic, because the words were doing nothing to cover up what under laid them—and that was levels upon levels of unimaginable suffering. And Erwin couldn’t handle that. He had been able to handle the deaths of thousands of soldiers. He’d been able to handle his own near death many times, and he’d been able to handle a world overrun by human eating monsters—but the one thing he couldn’t handle was the sight of Levi in pain, and the worst part about it was there was absolutely nothing he could do to stop it.

Because he was responsible. He had caused this reaction. And that’s why he knew, at the core of his being, that he didn’t deserve to say the words that then passed through his lips with such deep and utter conviction.

“I love you, Levi,” he breathed, putting every bit of himself into the words. “I love you with absolutely everything I have.”

Levi didn’t breathe, he didn’t speak—he didn’t do anything for one complete moment--until his inactivity was shattered as his fist connected solidly with Erwin’s face—this time with the entirety of his substantial strength.

As Erwin reeled to the side and rolled across the surface of the desk, he was assaulted by Levi’s voice, somehow managing to roar even louder than before.

“Fuck you, you FUCKING FUCKFACED BITCH!”

Erwin had heard a lot of Levi’s vulgarity in his time, but never had so much of it been so clearly directed toward him. He understood the reason for it. He truly did, and was about to round up some words of comfort for the other man, when he was flipped over by a pair of powerful hands, and socked in the face again. He tasted blood as his lip split under the assault, but all the pain he felt was directed toward Levi and the clear suffering in the man’s face.

“You don’t get to—you’re not allowed to—“ Levi’s struggle to find the words to express himself were proving elusive. “You can’t just do what you did and expect—I won’t let you—it’s not fair that you could—“

“Levi, I—“

“I fucking love you too, you stupid cocksucking son of a whore!” he howled, his eyes squeezed tightly shut as reams of never ending agony punched into the small man and crushed him from the inside. “I love you, I’ve always fucking loved you, and I hate you for it now. I do. I really do. You’re despicable for doing this to me. I’ll never forgive you. Not even if I live forever. I’ll—“

“Levi…” Erwin gasped, the word turning into a choked off sob as his brain collapsed from the newly processed information. Levi loved him. The man he’d treasured and dedicated his every effort to for so long loved him. He was going to die, but Levi loved him, and that was everything. It was far more than enough to make up for everything he was losing. Levi would always be more than enough for him. And he had to say it. Had to find some way to express it, but then Levi jerked his body up, causing Erwin to swallow his words as his head snapped back with a jolt. Anticipating another hit, Erwin’s body instinctively prepared for it, but there was no way it could have prepared for what it did receive, even if it had received advanced warning, because as Levi’s lips crashed down atop Erwin’s, the commander realized that there was nothing more jarring, painful, or wonderful than that sensation in all the world.

His arm tightened around Levi, drawing himself upward to better angle himself for the kiss. He’d never regretted the loss of his arm more keenly than he did at that moment because it meant he couldn’t grab more of the precious body in his arms, a tragedy that stuck him as unfair for the first time.

Levi’s crushing hold, however, made up for what Erwin couldn’t give. Levi’s fingers were like iron pincers as they dug into both Erwin’s back as well as his scalp as he fisted a handful of Erwin’s usually pristine hair. But it was his mouth that was the most ferocious part of him. He kissed Erwin like he did everything else important to him—with greater strength than anyone else could manage. He attacked Erwin’s mouth like the commander was the last meal of a starving man, his teeth sinking into his lips with skin tearing ferocity. The additional damage to his already split lip caused blood to run into their mouths, but Levi didn’t care, in fact, this seemed to spur him on to greater brutality. He shoved his leg between Erwin’s and leaned so far into him that they collapsed across the surface of the desk, both men’s hands secure holds on the other ensuring they weren’t separated in the slightest.

“You fucker,” Levi hissed, giving Erwin’s bottom lip a savage bite before his tongue and hot breath descended over the space to soothe the wound, “I really can’t fucking stand you right now.”

Erwin let out a groan that was swallowed by Levi as he tugged the man’s head back down, unwilling now to let go of a mouth he’d coveted for too many years, but Levi’s arms became iron bars on Erwin’s shoulders as he restrained him, forcing that terrible half inch of space back between their mouths.

“No!” he growled, smacking Erwin’s face, and peeling himself off the other’s chest, “ _You_ don’t get to do anything right now. You don’t deserve it. You’re taking yourself away from me. You’re going off to die to leave me in this fucking place without the one person I can’t bear to be separated from. You don’t deserve the fucking dirt on my boots.”

More of Levi’s pain spilled out and Erwin could only watch it, despairing of how much of it there was, and hating himself intensely for it. Hating that he’d allowed this to happen. Hating everything except the beautiful miserable creature on top of him.

“Levi, I’m so sorry. Really, I am. If I could—“

Levi seized two tight handfuls of Erwin’s uniform shirt, and tore it open, buttons pinging off in every directions. “I don’t need the apologies of a fucking dead man,” Levi snarled, dragging his hands down Erwin’s torso until his fingers found the buckle on his belt and tugged viciously at it. The leather strap came undone, and Levi yanked it out of Erwin’s pants loops with a sharp snap before flinging it carelessly aside. There was a crash that indicated that something had been knocked over, but neither of them turned to see the victim of the belt’s assault.

Erwin’s breath caught as Levi simply grabbed the leather of the straps, harness and pants, and _yanked_. The captain had no patience for the painstaking work involved in undoing things one by one, and he didn’t care as one of his nails caught, and ripped halfway off as he viciously tugged the uniform from Erwin’s body. Blood, red as the rose of the garrison, dotted Erwin’s pants as Levi pulled them all the way down his legs, yanking the man’s boots off with similar displays of animalistic strength as he did so.

“You’re going to take what I give you,” Levi growled, yanking Erwin’s body to the edge of the desk as he threw the blonde’s legs over his shoulders, “Because I’m not fucking letting you go.”

Erwin had no thoughts for his nakedness or the burning erection between his legs or the thundering of his heart because all he could feel was the way Levi was trembling as he dug his fingers bruisingly into Erwin’s thighs.

Erwin slid his hand down to Levi’s waist, pulling the man closer as he tried to raise his body. “I’m here,” he breathed, “Whatever you want, I’m here.”

Levi’s trembling increased, and now Erwin could feel trickles of fluid on his thighs as Levi’s desperate nails opened up crescent shaped cuts in the flesh there. “For how long?” Levi moaned, his head drooping as if he no longer had the strength to hold it up.

“Every moment I have left is yours,” Erwin promised, squeezing Levi’s waist as everything inside of him twisted and throbbed.

“I need more,” Levi gasped, his head collapsing back onto Erwin’s chest. “I need so much more.”

Erwin felt himself struggling to breathe as a weight far greater than Levi’s 140 pounds settled on his heart and compressed it down to nothing. He’d been so grateful before that he’d been able to spare Levi—but now he realized he hadn’t spared him at all. In fact, his decision had been entirely selfish, because Erwin far preferred his position now than the one Levi held. If their roles had been reversed… Erwin couldn’t imagine the suffering inherent in watching the man he loved executed before his eyes.

“Don’t come tomorrow,” Erwin begged. “Don’t come to watch. I don’t want you to suffer that. Please-- not that.”

“Idiot!” Levi cried and smacked his chest with a stinging slap. “You think that’ll spare me anything? You think asking that of me is merciful?”

Erwin’s head sank down onto the desk as he felt bitter tears sting at his eyes. He’d met up with unsolvable problems before, but none of them had hurt him this badly.

“Please let me take you away from here,” Levi begged, squeezing harder and harder, “Please, I swear I’ll keep us both alive. Just let me do it. It’s all I want. I won’t ask for anything ever again. I don’t care if you hate me afterwards and never touch me or look at me again, just please give me that one thing. I swear on my life that it’s the only thing I’ll ever ask for, Erwin, so just—“

“No.”

Erwin tried to make the word come out as gentle as possible, but he could almost hear the sound of Levi’s heart as the last strands of it severed, breaking it apart completely in response.

“I can’t, Levi,” Erwin said, his hand crossing Levi’s back tightly, “You know that if I leave those kids are as good as dead. My absence will throw suspicion on the entire corps and the public will demand blood, and they’ll take it, you can be sure of tha, Levi, and I can’t have that blood on my hands. I wouldn’t allow you to see me with that blood on my hands.”

“Oh? But it’s all right to just die with your blood on _my_ hands? That’s okay, is it?”

Levi, a man so usually blunt, had stooped to sarcasm in an attempt to hide the raging bitter pain behind his words. But it didn’t work. Erwin felt it acutely.

“I’m sorry.”

“Fuck you!”

“Please, Levi…”

“No!”

“Levi, humanity needs you more than they need me. You’re the symbol that gives them hope. They need you.”

“And I need _you!”_ he snapped, lifting himself up and snatching Erwin’s face in a tight hold. “But you don’t seem to give half a shit about that.”

“Levi, that’s not true, and you know—“

But Erwin’s response was cut off as Levi stuffed two of his fingers in Erwin’s mouth.

“Shut up,” he growled, lifting himself back up all the way and pulling Erwin’s thighs back up with his free hand, “I don’t want to hear another word of your selfish crap.”

He tugged Erwin once more, sliding half his ass off the desk, and supporting the weight with his strong body as he ground his hips down on Erwin’s crotch.

Erwin had never thought he’d wind up in this position in a million years, especially when he was in as much of an emotionally vulnerable state as he was now—so he’d never dreamed of preparing himself for this, and so when Levi thrust down against Erwin, the commander could only let out a sharp moan and let his body respond for him. He instinctively bucked his hips up in an attempt to find Levi’s, but this only seemed to infuriate the smaller man.

“No!” he barked, taking tight hold of Erwin’s hips with his hand and pressing down with all his strength. “I told you already—you threw away your chance to take, so you’ll just have to accept what I give.”

Erwin threw his head back, vibrating with the effort of stilling his body. But he had to. It was what Levi wanted, and in these last few hours Erwin wasn’t going to hurt the man any more than he already had.

Levi tore his fingers from Erwin’s mouth, a long string of saliva trailing across Erwin’s chest as he did so, before he unceremoniously brought them to Erwin’s ass and began to roughly massage the opening there.

Erwin gasped and bit down on his lip as sharp, unfamiliar pleasure raced up his spine and exploded in his brain.

“Levi,” he groaned, pushing up against the fingers as he momentarily forgot his instructions to keep still, “For so long I—“

“Didn’t I tell you to shut the fuck up?” Levi choked out.

Erwin’s eyes sprang open and he wrenched his head up to check on the face of the man who sounded close to tears.

“Levi—“

“Shut up!” he roared, his breath catching in the back of his throat as he took in a hissing inhale.

_If he cries then you’ll bear that stain forever_ Erwin thought as deep ditches of horror opened up in his abdomen.

Ignoring the demand to keep still, Erwin peeled his back off the top of the desk and reached forward, taking hold of Levi’s hand, and guiding it toward his entrance. “Here,” Erwin murmured, pushing the fingers inside of himself with a slick lewd sound. “Take what you need. Take everything. I’m so sorry I can’t give you more. I’d give you the whole world if I could. You deserve it. You deserve everything and I’m giving you nothing.”

Levi pulled Erwin up to his chest and held him close without removing his fingers. Slowly he slid them in deeper until they were seated as far as they would go. “I don’t want the damn world, I just want one asshole commander. The rest of the world can go fuck themselves in a titan’s anus for all I care.”

“You don’t mean that,” Erwin said as he curled his arm around Levi’s waist and pushed himself against Levi’s fingers, urging him to move them.

“Don’t you tell me what I fucking mean, Erwin,” Levi spat as he began scissoring his fingers inside of Erwin, causing the commander to let out a deep seated groan. It burned inside of him, but Erwin didn’t care. He could be bleeding from every orifice and it wouldn’t bother him as long as Levi was inside of him. He was going to die. It didn’t matter what state he was in when it happened. He just knew that when he did go it would be after having spent everything he had on the beautiful captain.

“You do care,” Erwin said, knowing it was maybe best to let the point go, but he couldn’t. “If you didn’t you’d drag me out of here against my will and force the corps to go to hell. But you won’t, because you’re a better person than I am, and I love you for that, Levi.”

Erwin squeezed Levi after uttering the words, feeling affection for the small man pour out of him in an endless wave, but Levi wouldn’t accept it. He slammed Erwin’s shoulders back down on the desktop and began to push his fingers into him with a force that neared violence. “Don’t,” Levi warned him. “You’ve done enough damage already. Don’t give me these words now. Not when there’s no future in them.”

The pain Erwin felt had nothing to do with the force of Levi’s hands. He felt sick inside. “I should have told you sooner. I’ve had these feelings since you were a cadet. I should’ve told you then. We could have had a chance—“

“DON’T!” Levi roared, grabbing Erwin around the neck and squeezing. “Don’t do that. Don’t you fucking dare. Don’t give me more regrets. I already have too many—“

But Erwin couldn’t stop. His hand found the hand around his neck and yanked it back. “I had so many opportunities and I wasted them all. I should’ve kissed you when you graduated. You looked so beautiful and I was so proud of you. And if not at that time, then it should have been after your first titan kill, or after the first time you saved my life. Or the time we had to bunk together because of bedbugs. Or after you told me about your family. Or—

“Or right the fuck now you stupid awful bastard,” Levi growled, snagging Erwin by the shreds of his shirt, and slamming their mouths back together.

_I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry_ Erwin’s mind shouted as he fisted Levi’s hair and opened his mouth to accept Levi’s kiss. He didn’t know if this would make it worse for Levi…afterward, but he didn’t think he had the strength to not have this with the captain, and he realized the desire to keep going was an enormously selfish one on his part.

_I’m not a very good person_ he admitted to himself, and he was surprisingly okay with that. He’d never mistaken himself for a hero or an angel. He’d just been someone to love a much more special man a little too hard and a little too late.

Erwin let out a genuine anguished whimper as Levi tore his mouth away, but the captain showed no mercy. “Spit,” he commanded holding his palm up to Erwin’s mouth.

When Erwin looked at him in disbelief, Levi snarled, “My mouth is dry,” by way of explanation.

So Erwin spit while his brain tried to process how far he had destroyed Levi if his usual fastidious hygiene had been broken.

Levi took his spit slicked hand and swiped it purposefully down his leaking erection.

“I need to have you,” he grunted, not looking at Erwin. “I know I’m a lot fucking smaller but I need every part of you and I’m fucking weak right now and I need it.”

Erwin could have laughed if he weren’t so tempted to cry.

“Of course,” he whispered nudging himself against Levi’s erection. Honestly, he had to say the biggest miracle here had to be the fact that they were both still this hard despite the fact that they were dying inside. “I want whatever you want.”

Levi squeezed his eyes tightly closed and through clenched teeth muttered, “You’re not saying that out of guilt? You really want this?”

“Yes, I mean, no to the first—oh god, just fuck me already Levi,” Erwin hissed pushing against Levi more insistently, giving up on coherency as his brain pounded at him to _hurry the fuck up already._

The words seemed to act like  the release of a coiled spring because as soon as they left Erwin’s mouth, Levi pounced, grabbing tight hold of Erwin’s hips with one hand, and his erection with the other as he pushed forward straight into the tight grasping heat that was Erwin.

Levi didn’t hesitate and pushed all the way into Erwin in one fluid motion, causing them both to groan loudly. Erwin felt his breath stolen away as the splitting level of fullness seized him.

_Fuck_ he thought as sweat beaded on his face and back at the burning pain _And I wanted to do this to Levi?_ He internally winced at the thought of sticking his much larger organ into Levi’s tiny rear. _Oh god, you would have punched right through him_ he thought with sick horror, grateful that they’d settled on this way after all. Because despite the pain he was desperately happy that this was happening. For so long he’d wondered what it would be like to join himself with Levi, and now that he had it…

He bit down hard on his lip to prevent the tears from spilling down his cheeks. It was so _powerful_. He hadn’t thought that it would be this much. He thought that the trust they shared between them couldn’t have gone deeper.

But he’d been wrong. So wrong. Because this sharing now was the culmination of everything they had, and it was so intense he wasn’t sure he’d survive it.

“Do you feel it too?” he choked out, hand searching for Levi’s fingers, and, upon finding them on his waist, giving them a squeeze.

Levi didn’t answer. He was trembling again. Shaking so much the drawers in the desk were rattling.

“Levi?” Erwin asked, suddenly struck with concern at the idea that Levi was in pain or unhappy with this arrangement. He knew his asshole wasn’t the cleanest place in the world, and to someone like Levi that had to be off putting. Maybe he’d frozen up at the idea of being trapped in such a dirty place. Maybe he hadn’t thought it through and was too scared to pull out. Maybe—

“ _Please_ ,” Levi begged, cutting off Erwin’s internal stream of worries. “Please let me move. _Please_.”

Erwin blinked, not understanding at first, thinking Levi meant he wanted to leave. But then the meaning hit him, and once again, he would have laughed had powerful emotions not kept him ensnared.

“Yes,” he said breathlessly, ignoring the burn as he pushed back against Levi, “Please, yes, I want—“

With an agonized cry Levi let go of himself, seizing tight hold of both of Erwin’s hips as he slammed himself in that last bit and then slid almost entirely out before ramming back home again. The motion forced every bit of air out of Erwin in a rough exhale and the forcefulness of it had bright spots of pain darken his vision, but he pushed back, taking as much as Levi gave. And god did he give, making love to Erwin with the same all-consuming quality he’d used to kiss him. The rhythm Levi set up was shaky at best as he lost control and pushed into Erwin over and over again. And then there wasn’t just pain, because as Levi rutted inside of him, tilting Erwin’s hips for deeper penetration, Erwin found himself crying out as Levi’s motions sent sparks of sharp pleasure up inside him. He’d never felt that kind of pleasure before—so deep and centered inside of himself—but Levi didn’t give him a chance to adjust to it. He just kept slamming into him, causing crest after crest of pleasure to punch into Erwin and steal all reasonable thought from him.

He wanted to tell Levi to slow down—not because he didn’t want this, but because he knew he was so close to losing it already, and he wanted to be there for Levi throughout it all, but then that thought disappeared when he felt something hot and wet hit his chest. And then again, and again. And then his heart turned inside out and bled because Levi, whose eyes were squeezed tightly closed, was holding on to Erwin as he eyes streamed tears, his mouth open in a soundless howl of pain.

Erwin didn’t pause. He threw himself upward and grabbed tight hold of Levi, pulling the man’s head into his neck as he wrapped his legs around the man’s waist, barely balancing on the edge of the desk as Levi slipped out of him with a slick pop.

“Levi,” Erwin crooned, pressing quick desperate kisses to the man’s face as he stroked the man’s hair with quick panicked motions. “I’m here. I’m still here. Don’t mourn yet, Levi, I’m still here.”

Levi shook his head violently but didn’t remove his head form Erwin’s neck. His breaths were entering him too quickly and sharply to form words so he kept shaking his head, and all the while Erwin felt the tears that burned like acid hit his skin and sink into him, he felt the weight of the terrible fate he’d left to the beautiful man twist inside his gut like a punishing blade.

“Empty,” Levi finally gasped, “Feel so empty.”

“What can I do?” Erwin begged, wishing not just for his missing limb, but for hundreds more so that he could wrap Levi up forever and protect him from every reality that threatened to hurt him.

“Fill me,” Levi demanded, urgency marking his movements as he climbed up onto the desk to straddle Erwin’s waist. “Fill every hole you’ve punched into me.”

And then he found Erwin’s mouth, and there was no talking for a while.

\----

When Erwin opened his eyes he found Levi’s beautiful grey ones digging burning holes into him. He didn’t remember falling asleep. Levi and him had spent hours making love to each other and spilling every fact, anecdote and desire they had in an effort to give the other a complete picture of themselves before time ran out.

“Shit,” Erwin whispered, panicking as he pushed himself up onto his elbow, “What time is it? How long did I—“

Levi pushed his mouth to Erwin’s and kissed him deeply, trying to keep it slow despite the urgency they both felt cracking everything.

“Less than an hour,” Levi murmured, “It’s okay.”

“It’s _not_ okay,” Erwin insisted, pressing a kiss to Levi’s jaw, and then his forehead, “I promised every moment to you, and—“

“And I had them,” Levi said simply, curling into Erwin’s front, “Your body is so warm when you sleep. I had to kick the blanket off.”

Levi let out an anguished sound, and slapped his hand over his mouth to stifle it.

“Levi, what—“

Erwin’s hand snapped out and grabbed Levi around the waist before the small captain could turn away, “I really _am_ sorry I fell asleep. I didn’t mean to—“

“I want to see it every night,” Levi gasped, clutching his stomach as well as he doubled over with pain. “Your sleeping face. I want it. I want it so bad.”

“Levi—“

“I can’t do this Erwin. I’m sneaking you out of here. I don’t care. You can’t stop me. I’m stronger than you are. I don’t care if they kill the kids. Not enough. Call me evil.  Call me selfish. I just don’t fucking care. I don’t! I’m not letting go, you hear me? I won’t.” and to illustrate his point, Levi straddled Erwin with dizzying speed and slammed his arm down over his head. “I’m not going to live without you. I refuse. That’s a kind of darkness I can’t survive, Erwin, and you can’t make me do it.”

“Calm, Levi, deep breaths,” Erwin murmured, lifting one of his legs (the only thing that was free) and rubbing his thigh against Levi’s side in an attempt to soothe him.

“You can take your fucking deep breaths bullshit,” Levi hissed, leaning down and grinding his forehead into Erwin’s, “And shove it straight up your bruised and pulverized ass.”

Erwin took advantage of the proximity of Levi’s face to press a kiss to his lips, nipping at them gently and tasting them far too briefly before drawing away. “Thanks, but I’d rather shove it up yours,” he answered in an attempt at humor. It must not have worked because Levi looked like he was about to start crying again.

He was about to make a second go of it, when an official sounding knock rapped against the door.

“Erwin smith, we’re here to—“

“Fuck off!” Levi barked, pulling Erwin closer as he stared murderous daggers into the door, “I’ve got a good half hour left until dawn and you’re not taking any of it.”

“The officials have assembled and decided not to delay. You’re to report to the platform in ten minutes with our escort.”

“I’m going to shove my fist so far down your throat you’ll be speaking out of your stomach for the rest of your godawful—“

“Levi, it’s not their fault. They’re just the messengers,” Erwin interrupted, pressing a kiss to the back of Levi’s neck.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass about that. If they put so much as a toe in here, I’m going to—“

“Levi,” Erwin said softly, cherishing the name on his tongue as he smoothed the man’s hair down, “I don’t want to be dragged to the gallows on my ass. If there’s any sort of dignity in death, I’d rather have it than not.”

Levi whipped around and stared into his eyes. “When they unlock the padlock they installed, I’ll kill them quickly, and then we’ll make a run for it. I’ll take the—“

“No, Levi.”

“But—“

“Please Levi, let me have these last moments with you in peace, okay?”

Levi’s forehead screwed up tightly, his eyebrows almost joining into one line, but then he smacked Erwin’s chest before standing up abruptly.

“Fine,” he grunted, turning his face to hide his expression as he stalked toward the basin of water on the side table. Erwin’s eyes followed the captain’s back worriedly, but Levi didn’t turn to look at him until he returned to the bed a couple of minutes later, holding Erwin’s shaving knife and a sudsy cloth.

“Close your eyes, stupid,” Levi muttered, yanking Erwin’s face up and pulling the skin tight across his cheek.

The warm bubble of affection that rose up in him was marred by the sharp pang of pain that accompanied it. He let his eyes fall closed and allowed Levi to shave his face, not worried in the slightest about getting nicked. Levi would never hurt him.

The practice of shaving seemed so intimate after the night they had shared, and though Levi had done this for Erwin before, it had never been done with such open understanding on either side.

“I used to get hard when I did this for you,” Levi admitted, swiping the last bit of soapy water from Erwin’s face. “You’re too fucking hot for your own good.”

Erwin finally let out a bark of laughter, and kissed Levi’s dry face with his wet one. “Every time?”

“Every fucking time,” Levi snarled and shoved at his shoulders after quickly returning the kiss. “I used to take my sexual frustration out on the cadets. Why do you think their scores improved so dramatically after I started training them?”

“I just thought they were trying to impress their beautiful captain,” Erwin said, nipping at Levi’s earlobe as the man pulled away.

“Well you thought wrong,” Levi corrected, moving to Erwin’s closet and pulling out a set of clothes for the commander. He did it so quickly that it wasn’t until Levi pulled Erwin’s arm and stump through the sleeves that he noticed that he’d pulled out his blue dress uniform.

“Want me to go out in style, huh?” Erwin asked, voice soft and full of love as he pulled Levi’s small body close to him.

Levi jerked his head away as he grabbed for Erwin’s pants. “I just like how the jacket looks with your eyes,” he muttered.

That comment earned Levi a kiss that quickly became quite involved until a rap on the door reminded them that their time wasn’t their own.

“Two more minutes,” the officious voice barked. Both Erwin and Levi middle fingered the door at precisely the same time, letting their kiss linger for several moments longer before pulling away.

Levi pulled him gently to his feet and began to do up the straps of his harness while Erwin touched his fingers to his lips and thought about how much luckier anyone who had ever received Levi’s lips was than the rest of the world’s population. Which made him curious.

“Hey Levi?” he murmured as Levi finished with Erwin’s straps, patted the man’s stomach affectionately and then moved to pull on his own clothes.

Levi looked up to show he was listening.

“How many others have you kissed?” he asked, feeling so damn in love with the dark haired man he thought his stomach would split from it. “It’s not a jealousy thing, I’m just curious.”

Surprisingly, both a blush and a smirk appeared on Levi’s face, and the combination was so uniquely cute that Erwin had to dig his hand into his thigh to prevent himself from tackling the man.

“Just one,” Levi answered.

Erwin’s eyes widened. “Just one, huh? And you call yourself a thug…”

“Ex-thug,” Levi reminded him as he began to do up his own straps. That was all he said.

Erwin wasn’t going to lie. He was intensely curious.

“Anyone I know?” Erwin asked, trying to keep his tone casual. He didn’t fool Levi one bit.

“I’d say so,” Levi answered, “you had a thing for her after all.”

Now Erwin was really surprised, and it didn’t take long to make a probable guess, even though the incident was so many years ago it seemed like someone else’s life. “Mary?” he asked.

Levi’s raised brow was all the answer he needed, but the short captain elaborated anyway. “It was not long after I graduated, and we’d come back from our first expedition. I was in love with you already then, and wanted to do something about it. There was something about experiencing Titans for the first time that kind of cleared my mind and made me want to put everything out in the open. I wanted to confess to you somehow, so I began to look for you, but then, when I did find you it was—“

“In the stupid pub with Mary,” Erwin interrupted, feeling cold regret and recognition in his gut, “I remember because you walked in when she kissed me, and I couldn’t help thinking about how much I’d rather be kissing you instead.”

He pulled Levi to him and rested his head atop Levi’s head. “I’m sorry,” he muttered miserably, “If I hadn’t, then maybe we would have—“

Levi poked him in the stomach. “Enough of that. I still got my revenge.”

His tone was clearly meant to pull Erwin out of the funk he was descending into and Erwin pulled Levi even closer in appreciation. “Oh?” he asked, a faint smile on his face.

“I stole it back,” he whispered conspiratorially, “As she was leaving the pub I kissed her and stole back the one you gave her. I liked to pretend that I could still taste you on her lips, and I’m still half-way convinced that it’s true.”

Erwin blinked, and then he lifted Levi straight into the air by scooping him up around the waist and planted a kiss on him that was so enthusiastic that Levi’s lovely flexible back was bent backwards at a scary angle from the force of it.

“God, I fucking love you,” Erwin said breathlessly just as the door to his quarters was thrown open and two men spilled inside while four more flanked the door.

“Rude cunts,” Levi muttered darkly, nuzzling into Erwin’s neck and wrapping his legs around his waist.

“You’re the rude one,” Erwin murmured, blowing a strand of Levi’s hair off his face.

“Yeah, but you find me hot, so it doesn’t count,” he countered, demonstrating his flawless logic.

“True enough,” Erwin said, regrettably setting Levi down on his feet. The short captain turned around without extricating himself from the arm Erwin had wrapped around his waist.

“I didn’t get to comb his hair yet,” Levi pointed out, hate pouring from his eyes.

“It’s too late for that,” the solider closest to them pointed out. Erwin vaguely recognized him as a man several years below him that had transferred to the military police. “It’s time to go.”

“I’d just like you to know that I fucking hate all of you, and will do everything in my power to make your life left on this earth as miserable as you’ll make mine once you allow them to take Erwin away from me,” Levi said in a tone that was icy steel and deadly serious.

“Levi,” Erwin murmured squeezing his shoulders.

Levi let out a low groan and turned his head into Erwin’s arm, “I know. I’m trying to let it just be us now, but it’s really fucking difficult, Erwin.”

_Be strong for Levi_ Erwin commanded himself as he felt his stomach bottom out as he looked at the burning eyed man _You have to make this transition as easy as possible for him._

But it was hard to think positively as the soldier in front pulled out a pair of cuffs and ordered Erwin to present his wrist so he could chain the commander and himself together

“Oh come the fuck on,” Levi protested angrily, “If he was going to run, he’d have done so already. Let him walk his last steps as a human, not a chained animal.”

“You say that like the decision is up to me,” the soldier said huffily.

Though the guy’s name eluded him, Erwin briefly remembered that the soldier, last he’d heard, was a captain, same as his lover.

“Captain, as my last dying wish I request to be chained to a different officer instead.”

The man looked mildly offended, but looked up at Erwin and shrugged. “Okay, take your pick. There are six of us—“

“Chain me to Captain Levi of the survey corps’ special operation squad,” he said with a confidence that he hoped covered the smugness in his voice caused by what a cheeky bastard he was.

By the rolled eyes that Levi granted him in return, Erwin knew he’d failed, but didn’t allow that fact to get him down too much.

“I accept the responsibility,” Levi said grabbing the cuffs from the man’s startled hands and quickly snapping them around both his and Erwin’s wrists. As soon as he did, Erwin linked their fingers together, raised Levi’s hand to his mouth, and kissed the top of it.

Several of the guards spluttered at this, but the head guy, Captain whatever, gave a snort of impatience and said, “Fine. Just get a move on.” And gestured toward the door.

They moved out in a square formation. With two guards in front, one on either side of Erwin and Levi, and then two in the back. On the walk down the long corridor, down the steps, and out the door, Erwin pulled Levi into his side, their hands wound tightly together. But when they reached the gathered crowd before the executioner’s platform, Levi turned deathly pale and stopped abruptly.

“Do you want to go back?” Erwin whispered, turning to face Levi and pulling him against his chest. “You don’t have to see—“

“You promised me every last moment,” Levi snarled, leaning up on the tips of his toes in order to lay a biting kiss on Erwin’s neck. “And I’m fucking getting every last moment.”

Erwin thought about how he’d be, five minutes in the future, spasming at the end of a rope as he was robbed of oxygen. It would be the stuff of nightmares, something Levi should definitely not see, but he didn’t hold any bargaining ships. Doing what he’d done he had no right to make further demands of Levi. If the man wanted to take in that suffering then Erwin wasn’t going to try and stop him.

They linked hands tightly once more as they were nudged forward and they passed through the aisle created for them at the center of the crowd. There were faces Erwin recognized and cared for, which was surprising. He’d thought his loved ones would stay away. But apparently they were as gluttonous for suffering as Levi was, because tear faced people stretched out their hands all around him to try and get ahold of him through the barricade of guards surrounding them.

“No!”

Erwin recognized the roaring voice. In all his years he’d never met a louder one, and it made a tight bitter smile cross his lips.

“No! You can’t!” Eren screamed, struggling violently against the three guards that held him back. “You can’t take him, you murderers! You’re killing an innocent man! You’re filth! I’ll teach you all! I’ll fucking teach you all!”

“Stand down, Jaeger,” Erwin said softly, trying to send an apology to the boy with his eyes.

Some of the anger seemed to collapse, because Eren sagged then, looking a lot older than his seventeen years. “Commander…” he sobbed, naked tears trailing down his cheeks unheeded, “Commander what will we do without you?”

Erwin had to turn his face away, guilt eating at his insides. “Hanji will command you well,” he murmured.

He didn’t bother to correct Eren that he had been stripped of any and all titles and was therefore a mere civilian in his last moments. It wouldn’t accomplish anything.

Levi gave Erwin’s hand a tight squeeze as Jean roughly yanked Eren out of the soldiers’ arms and crushed him in a tight embrace that Eren collapsed into as he sobbed harder. Mikasa and Armin were there as well, pulling at the boy as much as they held him, as well as each other. In fact it seemed that nearly all of the soldiers he’d recruited over the years were there. Survey corps members were made of tougher stuff, each of them had seen their comrades and officers devoured. So they were here, as this wouldn’t be too different despite the death being brought about by human, rather than Titan hands

“They cherished you,” Levi murmured, leaning into Erwin not for comfort, but because his body was sagging beneath the weight of his suffering. “You made a lot of tough decisions, but they recognized your excellent leadership. Every one of them will be heartbroken.”

Erwin didn’t answer. He knew that if he tried he would break down, and he wanted to give only strength to Levi now.

They reached the platform far too quickly and then it was time for he and Levi to separate.

The captain, who Erwin finally remembered was named Travers, twisted the key into the cuffs and pulled them away.

“If you could step onto the platform, Commander,” he directed, unable to look Erwin in the eye.

And that’s when Erwin felt a blossoming of warmth for the man, despite his role, because though he’d been stripped of any and all decoration, the Captain was still offering up a last salute to him.

“I beg from you one last moment, Captain,” Erwin requested, forcing his voice to be strong.

Travers darted his eyes over to the officials sitting stony faced at another raised platform behind the one they stood at. “Make it quick,” he breathed, “They’re not the patient sort.”

Erwin didn’t waste any time as his arm searched for Levi, but once again the man was faster than him. The smaller man lunged forward and grabbed Erwin’s face and kissed him like he was trying to fuse them together, to make it so that Erwin wouldn’t be dying alone—that he’d be taking Levi with him. But thankfully, Erwin thought, Levi couldn’t really do that, no matter how deeply and achingly he kissed Erwin.

Levi wouldn’t stop. He couldn’t. Not until Erwin finally forced his shoulders back and separated their gasping mouths. “It’s time,” Erwin said gently, stroking Levi’s face with tender love.

Levi gripped Erwin’s face tightly between his hands. “Erwin,” he choked, unable to say anything other than the name of the man he loved and trusted more than any other. “Erwin!”

“Levi.” Erwin answered, wishing he’d continue to do so forever. And then he gently peeled Levi’s hands from his face, kissed them both, and pushed the beloved man into the awaiting arms of his dearest friend.

“Erwin,” Hanji sobbed as she threw her arm around Erwin’s neck despite the hold she had on the small captain with the other. “ _Erwin_!”

“I love you,” Erwin said, his heart barely holding out, “I love you so much.”

Hanji sobbed like the sounds would rip her right in half.

“Take care of him, Hanji,” Erwin begged pushing his hand through Levi’s hair and wanting to hold it forever. “You’re the only one I trust to do so. Please keep him safe. Don’t let him hurt himself. Please, _please_ , I love him so goddamn much.”

“You’re so fucking stupid, Erwin,” Levi choked out, gripping Erwin’s shirt tightly despite Hanji’s hold on him.

“Take care of her, too,” Erwin said, without refuting Levi’s statement. “You need to take utmost care of each other. Everyone else is gone.”

Mike, Nanaba, Petra, Gunther, Erd, Auruo—they were all gone.

“Not everyone, sir,” said a new voice, as he stepped up behind Hanji and gathered both the people Erwin loved more than anything into his arms. Moblit looked Erwin straight in the eye, despite the tears that were streaming down his face, and said, “I’ll protect them with my life.”

Erwin felt gratitude, warm and strong, flood through him as he looked at Hanji’s second in command. There was no doubt in his mind that Moblit would do exactly as he said. The man cared about Hanji as deeply as Erwin himself did.

Erwin nodded and reached over to squeeze the soldier’s shoulder. “Thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I can go with that much more relief now.”

Erwin let go and then pressed kisses to each of their heads, his heart trembling and dying off as he did so, but then he forced himself to turn, to face the platform.

But not for long.

A strong solid grip dug into his shoulder and yanked him around with no regard for Erwin’s reaction to such a forceful gesture.

“Oh no you don’t,” a gruff and familiar voice snarled as he pulled him about face and crushed him into his arms, “Not without saying goodbye to me, you’re not.”

“Nile,” Erwin murmured as he hugged the man back, not giving a crap about the military police slogan on his back as he crushed the material in his hand to draw his friend closer. It didn’t matter that they’d disagreed on many large issues. It didn’t matter that for years they’d been working on opposite sides of their world—at that moment they were just a couple of old friends who had shared a deep and important time together.

“I love you, you cocksure son of a bitch,” Nile growled, kissing Erwin’s cheek roughly and pulling his head to his shoulder, “And I’ll go easy on Hanji the first few months. I won’t fight her tooth and nail as I did you.”

“I doubt she’ll make the same promise to you,” Erwin answered, breathing the scent of his old friend in one last time. “Say goodbye to your wife and the kids from me. You have a beautiful family.”

“So do you,” Nile muttered, jerking his head in the direction of the three precious people Erwin had left. “And they’re strong. Probably stronger than you. They’ll be okay.”

Erwin hoped with everything he had that his friend was right, and after another moment, they separated, Nile slapping Erwin’s cheek lightly. “Good bye, friend,” he rasped, sounding overcome for the first time Erwin had ever heard him.

“Good bye, Nile,” he murmured back, grasping the man’s fingers tightly with his own.

But then there really was nothing to stop him from continuing on.

Well, there was _everything_ to stop him, but Erwin had already turned his back away and he wasn’t going to look over his shoulder. He would continue forward and complete this. He’d protect his corps, and the man he loved with this last action.

He climbed the steps to the platform and moved directly to the executioner. Lining the back of the platform was a contingent of soldiers, the unicorn emblazoned on their backs as they held up their police issue rifles in accordance with protocol.

Erwin stepped up onto the collapsible platform and nodded toward the executioner. He didn’t know the man, and there was no possibility for recognition with his face covered as it was.

The man walked toward him with a strip of fabric, but Erwin waved him off. “No blindfold,” he said smoothly, “I’d rather die with this beautiful world in my eyes, thanks.”

The executioner nodded, and as he disposed of the blindfold, Erwin thought he detected a tremor in the man’s hands.

“It’s okay, soldier,” Erwin murmured, low enough so that only he and the man could hear. He knew the man had to be a soldier. Everyone involved in military hangings was. “It’s not your fault. You’re only fulfilling the duty of the court.”

This was too much for the man, who, despite his position, was only human.

“I’m so sorry Commander,” he said, looking up at Erwin and meeting his eyes with his own—the only things Erwin could see on the man’s face. They were a deep brown. “I used to watch you return from the expeditions and…you were a good leader. A true leader. This world will be worse off without you.”

Erwin smiled and took the noose from the man’s hands and slipped it over his neck. No need to dirty the man’s hands any more.

“Is it secure?” he asked, trying to reassure the man with his body language.

The executioner stepped forward and checked the knots as well as the rope attached to them.

“What’s your name, soldier?” Erwin asked, whispering as the man stepped close to him.

“Benjamin Abrams, Sir,” he answered hoarsely. Erwin was pretty sure that the man was crying. He sure was responsible for a lot of tears today.

“You’re a good man, Benjamin, don’t let this weigh too heavily on your heart,” he said.

The man nodded miserably and offered up a quick forbidden salute, before stepping off the platform’s outcropping to leave Erwin on it—alone.

But of course he wasn’t alone. Erwin looked over the sea of people and spotted even more familiar faces. There was the man who supplied the corps with bread, and there was the stable caretaker, and the blacksmith, and his grade school teacher, and…

Everywhere he looked there was love and tears, and Erwin throbbed with their feelings and returned them all.

_I led a blessed life. A good one_. He thought, feeling peace push through him all the way down to his toes and fingertips. _I never realized I was surrounded by this much love. I wonder what they thought I did to deserve it._

But even as he drew in all these faces, his body still ached to return to the one he needed most. As the executioner called out his warning and another soldier reached for the lever that would collapse the platform, Erwin allowed himself one last bit of self-indulgence.

_Just one more look. I just need one more, and then I’ll let go. I’ll let him go after that, but just one…”_

He turned his head to the place he’d left Levi.

But he wasn’t there.

Panic flooded through him in the instant he felt the platform collapse beneath him.

_No. My Levi. I need to see my Levi. One last time I need—_

The platform sank and with it did Erwin, but right before the rope snapped taught, something, or rather, some _one_ slammed into him. A very specific someone. A very beautiful very beloved someone.

There was a snick of knife through rope, and then they were falling—together—through the fifteen or so feet that separated them from the ground.

Erwin landed hard, his knees buckling beneath him, but Levi didn’t. Levi was always perfect.

He landed like a cat, absorbing all the impact easily enough, before he was on Erwin, ripping the noose from his neck.

“Never!” he snarled as  he threw the rope away with deep revulsion, “I will _never_ allow anything happen to you as long as I’m alive.”

“Levi…” Erwin wheezed, reaching for the perfect being, “You shouldn’t have—they’ll only—“

Levi stood, throwing his body out like a shield in front of Erwin and roared, “I did it! I ordered the soldiers to defy orders! It was me! He’s innocent—he’ll always be innocent!”

Horror flooded through Erwin as he quickly scrambled to his feet, feeling shaky and unsteady but knowing he had to stop Levi—had to stop this man from his forbidden actions, had to—

“The brats will tell you! It was me. Erwin lied. He’s a filthy beautiful liar. Hold the trial again. Hold—“

The gunshot, when it went off, was the loudest sound Erwin had ever heard.

Louder than the screams of the crowd.

Louder than his own horror filled cry.

And louder than the sound of his hammering heart.

“LEVI!” Erwin screamed as the captain’s tiny body stumbled and fell back from the bullet that had slammed into his head.

Erwin lunged forward to catch his body—the body he knew more intimately than any other—the body he would have done everything for—and the body, he knew, without having to look, that no longer housed the man who was more precious to him than any and all treasures in the world.

“ _LEVI_!” Erwin screamed again, knowing it was too late. The eyes that stared back up at him as Erwin peered desperately into his face were emptier than anything Erwin had ever seen. It was the antithesis of the tight burning focus Erwin had experienced for years. They were the eyes of an empty husk—everything that had been precious having emptied itself out in the span of a microsecond.

_A bullet, on the trajectory it had, would’ve killed him in an instant, shorting out his brain before he had the chance to feel pain._

That was the theory.

But Erwin couldn’t place any relief in theories. Not when everything he knew had been ripped from this world and devoured by something much bigger than him.

“Wake up, Levi,” Erwin begged, “I don’t want to see your sleeping face now. Wake up.”

He jostled Levi’s shoulder, first lightly, and then with increasing force. “Wake up Levi!” he shouted, “Wake up! I need you to wake up. I need to tell you things. I need to show you things. I need you. I need you. I need you more than any other fucking thing in existence. WAKE UP NOW, LEVI, DAMN IT! _WAKE THE FUCK UP!”_

“Erwin.”

The voice was not his own, and it wasn’t Levi’s, and that made it unimportant right now.

“Levi!” he screamed, shaking the man violently at this point, “ _Levi!_ ”

The man’s head bobbed around on his neck like a marionette—lifeless and beautiful.

Arms, tight and constricting, closed around him in what felt like a choke hold, cutting off whatever tiny bit of breath Erwin was managing to force into his body.

“Let go!” he screamed, “I need to wake Levi. I need to—“

“Erwin _stop_ ,” the voice begged, shredded and wrecked beyond repair, “Stop _please_.”

“No! Not ever! Not with Levi! Not with—“

“He’s gone, Erwin,” Hanji sobbed, collapsing on top of him, her arms falling as every last bit of strength left her as her body convulsed with the kind of tears she’d never put out. “He’s gone…”

“ _No_.”

The  word was filled with as much denial and vehemence he could muster. “He can’t be dead. He’s _Levi_ , for god’s sake, he’s the _strongest_.”

“He was human,” Hanji added without much conviction.

“He was _mine,”_ Erwin corrected. “He was _mine_ and he was supposed to _live_. I did all this so he could live. He was supposed to outlive me. He always was. That was his fate. I know it. _I know it_!”

“Erwin…”

But Erwin shrugged her off, pushing her to the ground and surging to his feet with Levi’s precious body in his arms.

He hoisted it up, presenting the body before him, letting them _see_. Letting them _know._

“He was _perfect!_ ” Erwin roared, spitting the words so hard he could feel his vocal chords tearing. “He was strong, and uncorrupted, and a better man than all of you combined and look what you’ve _DONE!”_

His tears streamed unchecked onto the precious face beneath him, and he cradled Levi close, wanting to suffuse the small body with his warmth, needing to keep him in as close to a live state as possible. Because Levi couldn’t be dead. Erwin couldn’t live in a world without Levi. The thought was impossible. It had never been one he’d been willing to contemplate. And he’d been so sure that his plan would succeed that this—this _horror—_ went so far over his acceptance limits that it simply didn’t compute.

And that’s why his next words seemed the most logical to make.

“KILL ME!” he roared, clutching the dear body close and throwing his head back, baring his neck with his eyes squeezed tightly shut and the tears streaming to the dusty parched earth. “You fucking brutes already tore everything human and good out of me so just fucking pull the trigger already!”

“Erwin, no!” Hanji screamed, scrambling to her feet and reaching out for him, but Erwin was already moving. He raced up the platform again, body spurned to motion by his intense need to _not be._ Because it was too wrong to be here without Levi. There would never be anything more painful than that.

He threw himself in front of the line of shoulders and ripped his shirt and jacket open and screamed. “Shoot! Fucking shoot already! My heart’s already gone, just fucking end it already. Hurry the fuck up and end it already!”

“Commander, please, don’t—“

With a roar, Erwin ripped one of the rifles from the unwilling soldier’s hands and dropped to the ground, cradling Levi close before he pulled his hand up to hold the gun up to his temple.

_Just a moment Levi_ his crazed and screaming mind promised _I’ll join you in just a moment. Wait for me. Just a second. I’m coming. I’m fucking coming for you, Levi._

But then as his finger curled over the trigger with no hesitation, Hanji’s body collided with his, causing the gun to fly from his hand and skitter across the platform.

“No!” she screamed, grabbing tight hold of him and refusing to let go, “You can’t! You can’t leave me! Not both of you! I can’t survive both of you! Please, Erwin— _please!_ ”

Her sobs shook his entire body and jostled Levi as well. “Please Erwin, the court has taken the life they needed, don’t let them take another one. With Levi’s confession we can—“

“It was a lie!” he roared, “A goddamn lie!”

“It doesn’t matter!” Hanji cried, “It doesn’t fucking matter anymore, Erwin. Lies, truth, it’s all one huge subjective mess and no one cares anymore. Not me, not the court, and not the beautiful man in your arms. We’ll get you through this. I’ll get you another damn trial, and you’ll win, I swear it on my life, so live, god damn it, please live Erwin. I don’t care if that’s the most selfish demand I can make, I’m making it anyway, because I refuse to live if you’re both gone and then who the fuck is supposed to lead the damn Survey Corps?”

Hanji seized Erwin’s face, and the commander’s eyes were so blurred with tears he could barely see her anymore, but he could hear her words. “I loved him. I loved him just as much as you did, god damn it. You are _not_ allowed to leave if I’m forced to stay. You are _not_.”

Erwin didn’t feel human anymore. He just felt like a ripped out pulsing husk. He had nothing but pain and this woman in his arms. And he wanted to surrender to that pain, to give in so badly, but there was the woman. And that woman was everything now that his Levi was gone.

“Okay,” he said bitterly, accepting the defeat that was this bleak and colorless world. “Okay.”

Hanji crawled into his lap, gathered both him and Levi into her arms, and sobbed. Blood and tears mixed freely, and Erwin could no longer tell which was which.

\-----

Six years later Hanji died. She shouldn’t have, just like everyone else’s deaths, but she did. Her legs were ripped off by Titan teeth, and even though Erwin threw himself forward, caught her, and bound her legs in immediate tourniquets while he roared for a retreat, she still died—right there in his arms. She hadn’t been able to even speak any last words. She’d reached up to touch his face, missed, and then was gone.

Erwin had carried her back like that on his horse. Refusing to let go of her until he directly placed her body on the funeral pyre with the others.

He’d been reinstated to Commander after his name had been cleared in the second trial. He’d vehemently opposed it, claiming that there was no way he could put his heart into it anymore, but he’d been overridden, his comrades insisting that despite the dead look in his eyes and the dark hole that should have housed his heart, he’d still been the best candidate for the position.

So he’d carried it out. What else could he do? Everything was the same anyway—the same haze of hurt and emptiness. Moblit had taken Levi’s title as captain, and taken the space in the formation that had belonged to the smaller man, but nobody had taken upon themselves the title of humanity’s strongest.

Erwin looked down on the body of his dearly beloved friend. So small and still in death. He’d never seen her go so long without speaking, and seeing her without her usual motion or the fire in her eyes just seemed wrong. He closed her eyes and pressed tender kisses to her forehead and both her cheeks. “Soon,” he whispered and stroked her hair just twice before standing up.

He was able to move due to his sense of purpose. And he was grateful to his body for keeping him moving for this long. He hadn’t moved very far—not even out of sight of the pile of bodies when a horse came racing toward him at full gallop. Erwin began to dart to the side, but then he saw the rider atop of the horse and froze.

He was here. That meant they could get this over with right now.

Moblit threw down the reigns and leapt down from his horse before it had even stopped moving.

“My wife,” he shouted, eyes huge and already streaming tears, “My wife—where is she—Armin said you had her. I only just got back through the gate. Where’s Zoe? Where’s my Zoe?”

Once more Erwin was met with the by now familiar feeling of missing his right arm, because as he enclosed Moblit in an embrace he didn’t feel like he was giving him enough.

“She’s gone. I couldn’t save her. I failed.”

Moblit became rigid in his hold, processing the information he’d already strongly suspected but had barely managed to deny until now.

“Gone…” he echoed in a dead voice. “My Zoe…”

Erwin knew it was coming. He knew it and that’s why he then gripped Moblit with absolutely everything he had—right before the man let out a scream that broke everything around him before turning into soundless and breathless weeping.

He shook so hard it clacked Erwin’s teeth together.

“I put her on the pile. I’m so sorry. I should have waited. I wasn’t thinking. My head—my head isn’t where it should be. Moblit, I—“

Moblit dug his nails into Erwin’s back and sobbed.

It was different for Moblit. He had a child. A beautiful little girl who looked just like her momma. He had to stay. He couldn’t go anywhere.

“I’m sorry, Moblit,” Erwin said, knowing his words were worse than useless, but he was too tired for anything helpful to pass through his lips. He’d never been this tired. But it was okay. He’d rest soon.

Moblit pulled back a little, still gripping his shoulders. “It’s okay. I won’t keep you here for me. I know you’re done. I know.”

Erwin pulled Moblit’s head forward and kissed it just as he’d done that day by the platform. But now his was the only head. There was no more to do.

“You’re a much stronger man than I, Moblit. A far stronger and better man. You’ll want to transfer to a desk job. Armin will arrange it. Levia needs you to survive her next birthday. She’s the only little girl the survey corps has right now and she needs a daddy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How many times have I told you not to call me that?” Erwin chided gently, swiping some of the tears off Moblit’s face with the back of his hand. They were quickly replaced by more.

Moblit looked at him, unable to smile, but there was warmth (as well as deep sorrow) in his eyes as he pulled Erwin close one last time and murmured, “Good bye, Erwin.”

“Goodbye, brother,” Erwin said, squeezing the man’s shoulder before letting go.

He turned then and walked away. Neither he nor Moblit looked back. Each had a different place they needed to be.

Erwin walked through the field until it merged with the corps’ training field. He walked through it, nodding toward those that greeted him, but not stopping once. He pushed through the doors that housed the dormitory and climbed the stairs to the second floor where his quarters were housed.

He knew he should probably stop to see a few more people, but he was far too tired. But they would understand. They knew that he’d only promised them this long.

He twisted the key in his door, pushed it open and stepped inside. Everything was as he’d left it when he’d gone out for the expedition this morning.

He walked toward his desk and sat down in his chair. There he set down a piece of paper, drew the ink up into the well of his pen, and began to write.

He didn’t write for a very long time, and he didn’t use any flowery language. He merely set down a few suggestions and revealed the locations for all important documents and plans. He then set down in writing his full hearted recommendation for Squad leader Jean Kirchtein to be promoted to the rank of Commander of the Survey corps.

He signed his name and set the paper down in front of him to allow the ink to dry. And then carefully, without disturbing any of the pages, he opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out the military pistol he’d never found a use for until now. However despite having had it for years, it was still in perfect condition as Erwin took it apart every week for cleaning.

It was already loaded, so all there was left to do was cock it, which Erwin presently did.

Then he closed his eyes and pushed the end of it into his mouth, his lips curving up around it in a relieved smile.

_It’s okay if you didn’t wait for me, my love_ he thought, the degree of warmth and dedication in his mind not having faded in the slightest during the passing years. _But I’m coming now. I didn’t forget. Not for a single moment did I forget about you, Levi._

And feeling a great sense of peace as well as a feeling of homecoming, he allowed everything else to fade from his mind other than the image of his beautiful dark haired captain.

And then he pulled the trigger.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry for this, readers. I'm going through some real tough shit now and this fic happened. If it's any consolation whatsoever I cried like a baby while I was writing it. I'm willing to hand out cuddles to any reader who asks for them.


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